The structural components of high durability customizable furniture are manufactured from rigid materials, such as stainless steel or aluminum, according to architectural specifications. For reasonable manufacturing efficiency, many furniture items such as tables and other work surfaces are manufactured with straight sides and square edges. A strong support structure can be made for attaching the furniture item to a wall by projecting a horizontal I-beam from a wall surface, such as shown in FIG. 8, or from a free-standing structure. Although not illustrated, the nature of the means for securing the I-beam to the wall results in the beam projecting perpendicularly from the wall at the point of attachment. Corresponding attachment components on the furniture item are constructed to engage the I-beam perpendicularly such that the furniture is also secured perpendicularly to the I-beam and, thus, parallel to the wall. Therefore, it becomes critically important for the I-beam to project perpendicularly from the wall so that, when an item of furniture is attached to it, the furniture lines up in perfect parallel alignment with the wall.
In most existing construction, walls are not perfectly straight and corners are not perfectly square. Therefore, I-beams projecting from an particular attachment point on a wall may not be perfectly perpendicular to the wall. Even with perfectly straight walls, if walls which intersect to form a corner are not square, the I-beams which project from the adjoining walls will not be in perpendicular relation to each other. Misalignment problems such as these make it difficult or impossible to secure table surfaces with straight sides and square corners in optimal alignment with an adjacent support wall or to fit a table top in the optimal position in a corner that is out of square.
If, for example, an I-beam projects from a wall having a surface imperfection, the I-beam may project at an angle that is not perpendicular to the general plane of the entire wall. Therefore, if a square desk is attached to the wall using the I-beam system described above, the surface nearest the wall will not be in parallel alignment with the wall. Rather than being an insignificant problem, since people are keen observers of this type of aesthetic misalignment, the installation can be rejected.
In another example, in the case of a desk having a return, if the desk is to be attached to one wall in a corner using the I-beam system described above, and the return is to be attached in like fashion to the other wall, if the I-beams are not in perpendicular relation to each other, only the desk or the return can be attached, but not both because the desk and return will not align with each other.
In addition to the above-described misalignment situation, during installation of more than one high durability furniture item, it if desirable to have a mechanism that allows relatively fine adjustments between adjoining pieces to present an aesthetically pleasing setting.
While work around solutions can be developed to solve the above furniture installation problems, they are expensive and time consuming. Therefore, an improved attachment mechanism is needed which permits attachment of rigid straight-sided furniture items to walls which are not perfectly flat and in corners that are not square.